End Of Project Evaluation Of ‘Fostering Self-Reliance For Displaced Syrians And Host Communities In South Of Lebanon’ (Fords)

Background: Mercy Corps exists to alleviate suffering, poverty, and oppression by helping people build secure, productive, and just communities. Mercy Corps has been present in the Middle East since the 1980s and currently has offices in Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya. Working in Lebanon since 1993, Mercy Corps has been running community development programs focused on promoting economic development and increased opportunity for disadvantaged communities, while responding to emergencies as they have emerged. Recently, the program portfolio has expanded in response to the massive refugee influx from Syria, including grants from UNICEF, European Commission, Canadian and American government, and private foundations.  The emergency response component of the portfolio will be an increasing focus and driver of programming in Lebanon. The conflict that began more than four years ago in Syria has resulted in a steady increase in Syrian refugees to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.  To date, more than one million refugees have fled their country and the numbers continue to mount. As numbers rapidly increase, humanitarian conditions are deteriorating.  The burden on host communities and the financial and emotional stress on refugees and their hosts is tremendous. Mercy Corps is responding to these needs by addressing urgent basic needs, child protection as well as the psychosocial impact of the conflict and displacement.  At the same time, Mercy Corps’ programmatic focus is on mitigating social tensions between hosts and refugees, particularly over economic resources, by addressing both livelihood opportunities and conflict mitigation capacity. Program Description: “Fostering Self Reliance for Displaced Syrians and Host Communities” (FORDS) is an 18-month livelihoods project, which is generously funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by Mercy Corps and Social, Humanitarian, Economical Intervention for Local Development (SHEILD) in the three South of Lebanon districts of Tyre, Nabatieh and Jezzine. The overall objective of this program is to help vulnerable communities to cope with the effects of the Syria conflict and enhance their livelihoods prospects in Lebanon. It aims to: a)      Enhance the livelihood opportunities of 600 people by providing them with new vocational and educational skills. b)      Provide tailored support for vocational start-ups and entrepreneurs to launch income-generation activities, with a focus on women and youth. c)      Provide Lebanese micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), as well as cooperatives with seed funding to facilitate their growth and labor expansion. The project started in January 2014 and will be ending in June 2015. Mercy Corps is looking for an experienced end-of-project evaluator as follows: Evaluation Objectives: To evaluate this 18-month project in terms of efficiency, efficiency, effectiveness impact and sustainability. To analyze the program implementation for lessons learned and best practice recommendations in order to help guide and inform future livelihoods program design and operations To review the local implementing partner’s contribution to FORDS   Consultant Deliverables: The Evaluation Consultant will initiate the evaluation by developing a detailed workplan along with the schedule of fieldwork, specifying how the information will be collected, organized and analyzed according to the information needs specified in this scope of work. The consultant will submit the final evaluation report and will present the findings to the Mercy Corps Lebanon team.  Mercy Corps reviewing team will provide comments within three days of submission.  The Evaluation consultant will incorporate comments and submit the finalized report one week after receiving the comments.   The final evaluation report will contain the following: Executive Summary (a clear and concise stand-alone document that gives readers the essential contents of the evaluation report) Methodology (schedule of activities, constraints and limitations of the evaluation process and rigor, and detailed description of data collection techniques used throughout the evaluation). Results (organized as per the evaluation objectives) Synthesis, Recommendations and Lessons Learned (concrete and practical recommendations for future programming in the Lebanese context, organization lessons learned.  Everything presented in this section should be directly linked to the information presented in the Results section of the report. Also include recommendations that are not directly tied to Results in such a way to give the Evaluator Comments) The Consultant will report to: Livelihoods Project Manager   The Consultant will work closely with: Livelihoods Project Manager Economic Growth and Livelihoods Advisor Livelihoods Project Officer South Area Manager Director of Programs Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Team Local implementing partner (SHEILD)   Evaluation Methodology Rapid appraisal techniques including key informant interviews, reviews of project documents, site observations, focus group discussions with staff and beneficiaries are recommended for collecting information. The evaluation consultant, however, should develop an appropriate methodology to address the evaluation scope of work. This SOW will be updated once the methodological details have been finalized by the evaluation team, including external consultant.   Team Composition & Participation The evaluation team will consist of one consultant in addition to the Lebanon M&E team.   Consultant: S/he will have a background and experience in livelihoods and socio-economic development programing, as well as monitoring and evaluation. The consultant should also be familiar with the Lebanon Syria Response context.  S/he should have strong command of Arabic and English, excellent writing skills, experience in writing reports and conducting field research. S/he will conduct field assessments as assigned and will lead the data analysis and report writing.         Mandatory: 1)Please mention the title "End of Project Evaluation Consultant" in the subject of the email 2) Applicants to submit the daily rate based on the days of consultancy duration 3) Applicants are requested to submit a Biodata form that includes a list of consultancies provided in the last 3 years with a proof of remuneration (invoices, receipts....) 4) Submit a list of 3 references names, emails & phone numbers of previous clients. Applicants MUST provide the mandatory information otherwise their APPLICATION WILL NOT BE REVIEWED.